Ryan Gosling Posts Fitting Tribute

Ryan Gosling has already melted the hearts of many, but when he posted a fitting tribute to Ryan McHenry, a cancer victim, his appeal skyrocketed. The Hollywood heart-throb known best for his work on The Notebook, playing the role of mill worker Noah Calhoun, posted a video of himself eating cereal as a moving tribute to McHenry, a young filmmaker from Scotland, who last week at just 27-years-old lost his battle with bone cancer.

In 2013, McHenry made Gosling the subject of an online comedy series posted to Vine, a social media site. McHenry’s creative work called Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal saw the filmmaker hold a spoon of cereal up to a television screen and with great talent timed Gosling’s on-screen moves so it looked like the actor was refusing to eat his cereal for breakfast. Using footage from Gosling’s films, the actor was pictured “refusing a spoon of cereal” by turning his head, shutting his mouth abruptly or even burying his mouth in a turtleneck top.

The series was an online sensation, with more than 200,000 Vine followers and shares in the millions, and resulted in a social media award for the young filmmaker. Talking at the time of his success, the Edinburgh filmmaker was overwhelmed with the response of his quirky project. He said he received notifications of re-tweets and shares like every 10 seconds.

More than a dozen tumors on McHenry’s lung was discovered and he was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. He used his battle with cancer to create his next hit, a video of himself at hospital not long after having the lung tumors removed. He lost the battle this week. A group of his friends have created a donation page in his memory so people are able to financially assist Sarcoma UK, a cancer charity.

Gosling had acknowledged the Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal series just prior to the end of McHenry’s two-year cancer battle and after finding out the sad news of the youngster’s death he posted a Vine video of himself finally eating cereal, showing his kind nature and melting the hearts of many more people. McHenry’s friend, 29-year-old Naysun Alae-Carew, said this was the most fitting send-off possible for his mate. McHenry was ecstatic that Gosling had acknowledged his work and they had even interacted through Twitter. Alae-Carew said the videos were created just to make people laugh, but with Gosling’s response, it just demonstrates “the effect that Ryan McHenry had on the world”. The clip of the 34-year-old actor finally eating his cereal has already received millions of “loops”. The video shows him pouring his cereal and milk into a bowl, raising his spoon in a toast, and then eating the cereal. Gosling reportedly opened a Vine account purely for this purpose. He also told his followers that he actually loved cereal.

Going above and beyond, the actor tweeted his condolences to friends and family of McHenry. He said he was “lucky” to be a part of McHenry’s life “in some small way”. This has shown fans that he is even more of a heart-throb then they realized.